Day 5: New Heads Up Champion crowned after exciting final day

OK, so we're down to the final 8, and we're in for some very exciting stuff. For those who haven't read yesterday's report, I will give you a short introduction of all the final eight players, and also how they got there.

"Miami" John Cernuto (59)
Grew up in Miami, now living in Las Vegas. Was a professional air traffic controller, before he decided to make it as a pro. He's married to Connie, who is also here in Vienna, and they have three children.

Salah Alsayegh (29)
A businessman from Kuwait, who considers himself a recreational player. Likes to play the smaller buy-in tournaments in the Los Angeles area, and had some success in this tournament already with his third place in the 225 Euros buy-in pot-limit hold'em event. Salah prefers hi-lo poker over any other game, and is still single.

Ivo Donev (43)
International chess master, who is now a professional chess player / trainer, and very successful in poker as well. Lives in Bregenz with his young boy and his wife, who is now pregnant again.

Randy Holland (51)
Professional tournament player, born in Calgary, Canada, and now living in Los Angeles. Has two bracelets (Stud / 8 and Razz), and is considered one of the best and consistent players in the world. Used to be a lawyer, and is married. Loves the heads up, as it is a relatively new experience also for him.

Mickey Wernick (58)
A former bookmaker from Birmingham, England. Retired five years ago, and now plays a lot of poker. Was especially happy with his victory over Marcel Lüske, having come back from so far behind.

Ram Vaswani (33)
Ex-snooker player from London, England, who has now been cracking the tournament circuit from quite a few years. Loves heads-up play, also on the Internet. His girlfriend Jackie is joining him here In Vienna (she always does), and they plan to have children soon.

Anthony Chapman (55)
A former flooring company owner from Surrey / London, England, who now plays about five nights a week, either in tournaments or in cash games. Was the Heads Up Reading Captain in the Casino Heads Up Match organized by Dave Welch, and has a partner and one son.

Bob Coombes (55)
Yet another Englishman. Bob is married, has one child who is working as a teacher. Used to be a software engineer, but has only been playing poker for a very long time now. Plays mainly on the Internet.

Road to the final eight

Last 16 Last 32 Round 2 Round 1
Anthony Chapman Lu Zhang Alexander Kravchenko Zlatko Poschl Chister Lovas
Bob Coombes Christian Skjonstad Ross Boatman Karel Kabrna Barney Boatman
Randy Holland Michael Frisby Carlo Citrone Jac Arama Wolfgang Pilecki
Ivo Donev Barbara Enright Torstein Iversen Scotty Nguyen Arseniy Meshchekryakov
Salah Alsayegh Scotty Nguyen Markus Golser Bernd Rygol Thomas Brown
Ram Vaswani Sigi Stockinger Peter Karall Ketil Hanstveit Chris Bigler
Mickey Wernick Padraig Parkinson Marcel Lüske Angelo Yu Zuoping Sigi Stockinger
John Cernuto Dave Colclough Dave Tarbet Jan Lundberg Jeff Lisandro

Quarterfinals

All quarterfinals were played on a special stage, with just about everything taped, with players having to wear make-up before entering the arena, and with spectators all around: well, just about everything you can expect in a televised event. To make things look better on TV, players now started with 20,000 points instead of 5,000. However, relative to the blinds things would remain exactly the same: blinds for the first hour 200-400, for the second hour 300-600, in from third hour onward 400-800, with no more blinds increases after that. So, what was it all about; what exactly was at stake here? Money, guys, lots of money; money and -believe it or not- probably more importantly- FAME!

Ivo Donev* - Randy Holland
The first quarterfinal to be played was between Ivo Donev and Randy Holland. Having made such a great showing this week, Randy didn't seem at his best yesterday. (Both this quarterfinal and the second one were played yesterday night). He may have been put off his regular game a bit by Ivo's constant chatter and his tricky moves, or maybe he was just a bit tired, but whatever the reason he just couldn't catch up with his opponent's game. Having said all this, it wasn't a really sparkling game, and even though Ivo was a bit more aggressive there wasn't that much difference. In the end, Randy had the familiar face of Ivo running away from the table (a thing he always does after having gone all-in), but unfortunately for him the chess master didn't need to come back- other than to shake Randy's hand, and to tell his story to the TV-cameras.

John Cernuto* - Mickey Wernick
Now, this was an exciting game to watch. Mickey took an early lead, and had his famous opponent outchipped 3-to-1, but the longer the match lasted, the more Miami John seemed to be able to relax. Holding king-queen, he recovered some chips when a queen was the top card on the board, and they were almost even in chips when the following hand developed. In an amazing starting hand distribution (this being a heads-up match, plus a match of this type of importance), Miami John found ace-king, while his opponent held pocket kings! They got all their money in before the flop, and you could almost hear Mickey thoughts: no ace, please, no ace. Well, he got what he wanted, but lost anyway. With a deuce, three, four and a five on the board, John had made a wheel and had once again gotten lucky when it mattered most. Even though Mickey had some chips left, he could not make the same type of recovery he had made earlier that day, and we had a big-name finalist in John Cernuto.

Ram Vaswani - Salah Alsayegh*
The major upset in this year's quarterfinals. There had been lots of betting on Ram (on www.betfair.com, close to 10,000 Euros had been wagered on him to win), and most people expected Ram's bigger experience in important matches to pay off today. But Salah cracked him! "The Destroyer", as he likes to be called, was very aggressive by raising and re-raising Ram whenever he could. The Englishman would call him whenever possible, but in general tried to avoid building a big pot before the flop, not wanting to give Salah the chance to get lucky in one shot. He tried to stay alive by picking up a few small pots here and there, but despite this he was down in chips about 12,000 to 28,000. Then, he raised his 400 blind to 2,000 before the flop, with Salah calling. On a flop 952, Ram then moved in for his entire stack, which was about 10,000 more. Salah called immediately with the set of fives he had flopped, and Ram's king-jack of spades could only win by catching a runner-runner straight (there were no spades on the board). But it didn't happen, and after having beaten potential tournament winners Markus Golser and Scotty Nguyen, Salah had now also crushed European tournament star Ram Vaswani.

Bob Coombes - Anthony Chapman*
Being good friends, it was only logical this game would be played in an excellent atmosphere. Early in the match, it was Anthony who was closed to being knocked out. Being very low on chips, he was almost to make a move in order to stay alive, and he did that while holding jack-ten, on an 842 rainbow flop. Bob called him, holding A9 of spades for two overcards to the board and a back-door nut-flush draw, and was probably a bit surprised that he was actually in the lead. But a jack came on the turn, doubling Chapman up to 1,400, and getting him back into the match. He then went on to win quite a few relatively small pots, like when on the river one pair of aces / no kicker proved to be good, and suddenly had become the chip leader by far. The tried to finish off Coombes in an all-in-before-the-flop coup. But his king-eight was dominated by his opponent's king-ten, and with a king, an ace and a couple of small cards on the board, Bob's kicker played. Bob won another pot when he raised Anthony's 2,300 bet on a board 555J to make his opponent fold, and after two hours we had fairly even stacks again. Anthony regained the lead though, but when he wanted to finish off Bob he lost to his kicker for the second time: A8 vs. AK, with an ace on the board. But Chapman kept the pressure on to go back in front. With 28,800 vs. 11,200 in chips, he went all-in before the flop with ace-jack of spades against Bob's pocket queens, and made the nuts on the river with three spades on the board. After two and a half hours of play, we had our fourth semi-finalist: the capable-but-friendly Londoner Anthony Chapman.

Semi-finals

In the semi-finals, all players started with 40,000 in chips. The blinds would start at 400-800, and would move up to 600-1,200 after one hour, with the final increase to 800-1,600 after two hours.

John Cernuto* - Salah Alsayegh (2h01)
Both players seemed to enjoy themselves in this match. Salah seemed to enjoy talking to Miami John, and John seemed to enjoy listening to Salah's talking. In the meantime, the American would try to keep the pots small, and use his probably better judgment after the flop, and bigger experience in playing matches like this, to make the best possible decisions late in the hand. What this all meant was that there was not a lot of chip movement, not a lot of action, and that Miami John was slowly but surely increasing his chip lead. When he decided the gamble might be worth it to try to finish things off, he was willing to go all-in before the flop, and as has been "normal" for John this week- when he needed it most, it would come. Holding AJ against Salah's pocket nines, John found an ace on the turn to beat the young man from Kuwait, and to secure his place into the third annual World Heads Up final.

Ivo Donev - Anthony Chapman* (0h15)
A good match for the TV-audience, this second semi-final between Ivo and Anthony. Ivo had emptied his entire closet before heading towards this game: he had brought with him a bag, headphones, a cap, dark glasses, and two massage balls with a Yin & Yang sign on it, to be used when he needed to calm down, when he wanted to distract his opponent, or in pressure situations. In short: it looked like a "real" poker match. On top of that, the match was fast, there was dramatic action, and we had a great final hand. I won't bother you with too many details- after all, the exact hands can be found in Jon's live-action update. I will stick to the final hand, as this was so exciting. Being only slightly in front, Anthony called Ivo's 2,000 preflop button raise from the blind, and then bet 7,000 into him on the flop J97 rainbow. Ivo raised him all-in for about 25,000 more, getting up from the table immediately to walk around, with the massage balls rolling around in his hand, looking to his left, looking to his right, yeah looking at his opponent even. In the meantime, Anthony had a very tough decision to make, holding jack-deuce only, for top pair / no kicker- which, for all he knew might mean he was drawing dead. But he did not fold: he called the huge raise, and he was in front- his opponent holding KT for a double belly buster straight draw + king overcard. Or, as Ivo stated later: "I had two times twelve cards; I was the favorite by far. Plus, how on earth could he call me. I could have had a straight, a set, two pair, a pair with a bigger kicker- anything!" Well, while he could have had all these hands, he didn't. Anthony had been faced with a very tough decision, had made a very brave call, and was rewarded with two blanks to have his jacks stand up- and to proceed into the final against the famous Miami John.

The final

Anthony Chapman - John Cernuto* (1h40)
The final match of this tournament was a highly interesting affair. Despite all the pressure, both players seemed quite relaxed, and after a careful start, they quickly turned up the heat a little. It was especially Chapman who tried to force the action, and who did this with a betting pattern that was a little strange. He liked to bet aggressively before the flop, but after the flop he would then often slow down a little. But he would not let his opponent take the pots away from him either, and he was not afraid to call a big bet if he thought his opponent was trying to play his position, or was trying to pick up the pot because of the signs of weakness that he had given. For instance, in one raised pot he check-called John with sevens on a K93 board, and on another one he called a big bet with only jacks after John had re-raised before the flop, and had then made a big bet on a flop K72. Anthony kept the pressure on, and by simply winning more pots than John he took a comfortable 125,000 to 35,000 chip lead. (Both players received 80,000 in chips, blinds starting at 750-1500 in the first hour, 1000-2000 in the second). But he forgot to finish things off when he sort of semi-bluffed on the flop and turn with JT, but then forgot to make a final stab at the river (board K43Q5); now his opponent was able to win the pot with a mere pair of fours.

Miami John came back into the match from there, won three pots when there were big cards on the board and Anthony could not call, and having moved into an 80,500 to 79,500 (!) chip lead we then witnessed an amazing hand. Miami John had made a very big re-raise before the flop, and then Chapman came over the top of that, for a total of about 50,000. Cernuto then decided to stick the remainder of his chips in as well, holding kings against Anthony's relatively weak ace-jack. Still, the Brit was far from dead, but when the final board read 94T26, we had our new champion. Congratulations to Miami John Cernuto, the fantastic winner of this year's event, which has been so fascinating, so exciting, and which has given us so much great poker. Thanks to all the players, the staff, the dealers, to PokerInEurope, and most of all to sponsor Paradise Poker for making this event possible- and for adding a whopping 25,000 Euros to the prize pool.

Final results

EUR 60,000 John Cernuto
EUR 25,000 Anthony Chapman
EUR 12,000 Salah Alsayegh, Ivo Donev
EUR 6,000 Bob Coombes, Randy Holland, Ram Vaswani, Mickey Wernick
EUR 2,500 Barbara Enright, Michael Frisby, Scotty Nguyen, Padraig Parkinson,
Christian Skjonstad, Sigi Stockinger, Dave Tarbet, Lu Zhang

Some final words

I hope you all have enjoyed my daily reports. On behalf of Nic Szeremeta, Jon Shoreman and Richard Geller, I would say: thanks for reading- and hopefully, we will see you all next year! Take care, and good luck,

Rolf.